(no subject)
From Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries, in the section dealing with Christian attempts to eradicate the "rustic" paganism of the illiterate country folk once they were done with the priesthood and temples in the cities:
"Take the learned Agobard of Lyons, bishop until his death in 840: he writes a treatise titled, though perhaps not by the author, 'Against the stupid opinions of the masses,' in which he begins, 'In these parts nearly everyone, noble or lowly, citified or rustic, old or young, thinks that hailstorms and thunder are within the control of man'; and from here he goes on to describe a universal belief in practitioners called tempestarii or weather-men who can be called in to control the source of the phenomena, which most folk say come from a sky-land called Magonia and are born along celestial ships.
"Now this, says Agobard, is madness, a great stupidity; and the most profound stupidity of all which he recently witnessed was the exhibiting of four people tied up and held in the public prison who, it was advertised, had accidentally tumbled out of the ships!"
Am I the only one who thinks that castaways from weather-controlling skyships into Dark Ages France would make a great basis for a fantasy short story? I'm filing this one away for later.
"Take the learned Agobard of Lyons, bishop until his death in 840: he writes a treatise titled, though perhaps not by the author, 'Against the stupid opinions of the masses,' in which he begins, 'In these parts nearly everyone, noble or lowly, citified or rustic, old or young, thinks that hailstorms and thunder are within the control of man'; and from here he goes on to describe a universal belief in practitioners called tempestarii or weather-men who can be called in to control the source of the phenomena, which most folk say come from a sky-land called Magonia and are born along celestial ships.
"Now this, says Agobard, is madness, a great stupidity; and the most profound stupidity of all which he recently witnessed was the exhibiting of four people tied up and held in the public prison who, it was advertised, had accidentally tumbled out of the ships!"
Am I the only one who thinks that castaways from weather-controlling skyships into Dark Ages France would make a great basis for a fantasy short story? I'm filing this one away for later.